Michels Corporation, Brownsville, WI, has won Western Builder Magazine's 2008 Project of the Year competition with a job that constructed 252 miles of pipeline and included a Wisconsin-record tunnel 80 inches in diameter and more than 1,000 feet long.
Sponsored by Case Construction Equipment, Inc., Racine, WI, the contest was open to projects that were in progress or had been completed in Wisconsin or Michigan's Upper Peninsula during 2008.
The top prize included a commemorative plaque; $5,000 toward products or services at a Case dealer; a feature story; and a one-year subscription to Reed Bulletin.
Projects submitted by September 2008 were judged in one pool, and projects submitted from September to November 2008 were judged in a second pool.
Judges then matched the winners of the first and second pools head to head for the overall title.
Michels won the first pool and edged out second-pool winner Miron Construction Co., Inc., Neenah, WI, for the overall title.
Other contractors whose projects received votes in pool competition included: Integrity Grading and Excavating, Rothschild, WI; James Peterson Sons', Inc., Medford, WI; and Don Praeger & Sons, Inc., Milwaukee, WI.
Michels' winning entry was its 252-mile segment of the Southern Access Enbridge Project.
Overall, the Enbridge Project constructed 454 miles of 42-inch-diameter and 20-inch-diameter oil pipeline from Superior at the northwestern tip of Wisconsin to just southwest of Chicago, IL.
Energy experts have called it one of Wisconsin's largest utility projects ever.
One of the highlights of the project was Michels' use of micro tunneling to run 1,000 feet of 80-inch diameter pipe beneath the Rock River in southern Wisconsin.
This was the first time that micro tunneling had been used in Wisconsin on such a large scale for installing an oil line.
Despite battling widespread and devastating flooding that ravaged south-central Wisconsin in the spring of 2008, Michels finished its section of the pipeline ahead of schedule.
Western Builder Magazine, Case Construction Equipment, and Case dealer Miller-Bradford & Risberg presented the champion's plaque and ceremonial check to Michels on April 9, 2009.
